KCR To Centre: Leave Agriculture, Health To States

Asserting that Telangana was a rich state with amongst the highest revenues, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao today launched an attack on the BJP-led union government for denying funds to the flagship programs of the state.

Those at the helm of affairs at the Centre lacked the capability to cater to the water needs of the states in the country despite about 17,000 TMC of waters getting wasted by going into the seas, he fumed. This was compelling him to work for a strong federal front that would address the key issues across the nation including agriculture, water usage, irrigation projects and others, he said in the Legislative Council while replying to a debate on the state budget.

While 70,000 TMC of waters were available and 40,000 acres were cultivable across the nation, successive governments at the Centre had miserably failed to address the shortage issues due to lack of vision and poor planning, despite the states fighting for 70 years, he alleged.

The Chief Minister took a dig at the Centre for not believing in the federal spirit of extending the needed financial support to the states. Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier said that the states' development was national development, his words did not match his actions, KCR charged. He took serious exception to the Centre for not giving just Rs 24,000 crores, the recommendation of NITI Ayog, for Telangana's flagship programs.

KCR also found fault with the Centre for retaining the education, and the urban and rural development sectors with it, and demanded that it give the agriculture and health departments to the states.

He reiterated that loans were inevitable for the states to implement their development programs in a phased manner, and the states needed a rise in the loan limit. He said that the Centre which had "failed in several sectors" had still borrowed Rs 82 lakh crores this fiscal. Telangana was certainly not in a debt trap, and the loans being taken were for growth, he maintained. He flayed the opposition for terming the budget as a jugglery of numbers, said that the Telangana government had spent Rs 1.24 lakh crores on average over four years, while during the days of the combined state, Rs 1.29 crores was spent for 23 districts during 2004-14.